Fatebinder’s Edict of Stone

Fatebinder’s Edict of Stone is a random encounter in Tales from the Tiers.

Transcript
The parched earth, cracks beneath your tread. The air hangs still, a thin fog of dry dust layering everything in sight, lending a gray veneer to all you perceive. The land seems to drink the movement of all things into itself, then rumbles with indigestion from the power. Yet you issued this Edict, and it remains connected to you. You feel the strength of the land in your muscles and bone, its enduring hardness in your flesh. As you crest the lip of a shallow gorge, you think for a moment that you've stumbled upon a contingent of soldiers lying in wait. That none of them are at all moving quickly dispels such thoughts. Corpses, or something like corpses, litter the ground, each as still as statuary. As you crest one of the flame-blackened hills, you see spread before you a camp, utterly still. You espy a few bodies among the tents and ashen stumps. As you approach them, you realize that what you at first took to be a small cluster of stones are actually a small collection of huddled bodies. None move. The song of insects sounds but a tired groan, and the broad, open fields of Haven spread dry and brown to the horizon. Limp grass sags beneath its own weight. A single spark, you imagine, would reduce the entire region to cinders. Even the mountains seem drier, their peaks no longer capped by glistening white. The evergreens have given up their color, and the Matani has been reduced to a trickling line of muddy water. Investigate further. Avoid them. You continue along the road, skirting the valley of the dead. You walk among the bodies and realize from the rags they wore and the almost complete absence of weapons that they were peasants, refugees of Stalwart, likely, who had been in hiding, possibly sheltering in the gully against the Overlord's Edict of Storms. A dull, uniform reddish gray hue colors them entirely, skin, clothes, and belongings included. You enter the camp and recognize the garb and staves of the School of Ink and Quill. Some of those gathered here were no more than children, likely refugees from the Vellum Citadel's destruction. You find a small stack of scrolls, lift one, and realize that it has been transformed into a single thin curl of brittle rock. It crumbles in your hands. Your attention turns to the bodies, each the gray-black color of charcoal. You approach the corpses and find that both their skin and their simple farmers' garb is the same dull brown color of the land. Sashes, shoes, hair, even their wooden cart, all claimed by the Stone Sea. Only one of the corpses shows any color at all: a long, sharp shard of violet crystal that rises from her gaping mouth, sparkling silently in the sun. Speak to them. You touch the face of an unmoving boy, no more than ten years old, and find it as unyielding as stone. You realize, as you stand, that the Edict has entirely transformed these bodies to rock. You wonder for a moment, whether these people were dead before the Edict reduced them to stone, or if its power killed them. You continue your journey, giving the camp of corpses a wide berth. You leave the bodies be and continue your travels. You approach a farm, little more than a field demarcated by a low stone wall. Within, a small family picks among the wilted stalks, collecting what desiccated husks that remain. Ignore them. Having nothing to say to the peasants, you continue past, leaving them to their labor. The family genuflect, greeting your arrival with extreme obeisance. They make no complaint about their situation, but instead offer you what few vegetables they have collected. Accept them. [10000 rings] Purchase them. Tell the family to relocate. You accept the offering and continue on your journey, leaving the small farm behind. You accept the offering, but give your own in exchange: a full iron ring, far more than the worth of the food. The farmers' eyes go wide at the ring, and they try to refuse it, but you suggest that it would be unwise to reject the largess of an Archon. They thank you profusely, falling to the dry earth in gratitude. You continue on your journey. The farmers blanch, stutter, and avert their gazes. Their family worked this land for generations, they tell you, and even if they wanted to, they cannot afford to relocate. They again offer the fruits of their labors. [10000 rings] Purchase them. Refuse them. The farmers try to press the food on you, but when it's clear you will not take it, they accept your refusal. You continue on, leaving them behind you. Continue... Continue... Continue... The parched earth, cracks beneath your tread. The air hangs still, a thin fog of dry dust layering everything in sight, lending a gray veneer to all you perceive. The land seems to drink the movement of all things into itself, then rumbles with indigestion from the power. Yet you issued this Edict, and it remains connected to you. You feel the strength of the land in your muscles and bone, its enduring hardness in your flesh. Continue... The parched earth, cracks beneath your tread. The air hangs still, a thin fog of dry dust layering everything in sight, lending a gray veneer to all you perceive. The land seems to drink the movement of all things into itself, then rumbles with indigestion from the power. Yet you issued this Edict, and it remains connected to you. You feel the strength of the land in your muscles and bone, its enduring hardness in your flesh. Continue... The parched earth, cracks beneath your tread. The air hangs still, a thin fog of dry dust layering everything in sight, lending a gray veneer to all you perceive. The land seems to drink the movement of all things into itself, then rumbles with indigestion from the power. Yet you issued this Edict, and it remains connected to you. You feel the strength of the land in your muscles and bone, its enduring hardness in your flesh. Continue... The parched earth, cracks beneath your tread. The air hangs still, a thin fog of dry dust layering everything in sight, lending a gray veneer to all you perceive. The land seems to drink the movement of all things into itself, then rumbles with indigestion from the power. Yet you issued this Edict, and it remains connected to you. You feel the strength of the land in your muscles and bone, its enduring hardness in your flesh. Continue...